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Sunday 23/12/12

Finally our guests arrive today. We seem to have been getting
ready forever but there has been an awful lot to do in the way of cleaning,
shopping, maintaining and familiarising ourselves with the chalet. We now know
it inside out and it has 9 bedrooms (sleeping max 28), 6 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, 2 lounges, 1
jacuzzi/sauna room, 1 boot-room, 1 boiler room and various store rooms.

We arrived here 3 weeks ago with the intention of spending
the first week leisurely driving around – those that have been following the
blog will have seen however that we ended up being snowed-in for the first
week. On arrival Les Carroz was pretty much shut-up with just the post office,
two bars and one bakery open. Now the place is buzzing with numerous ski-hire
shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, super-markets, and the inevitable shops with
‘stuff’ in (you can’t get away from them wherever you go!) all ready for
business.

We have cleaned the chalet from top to bottom, fixing things
as we have gone along even rearranging (and thinning out) the furniture. The
hot-tub on first run was found to have 6 leaks and a few broken jets – Dave has fixed
all these now and we have tested it on a few evenings to make sure it is the
right temperature and the leaks are fixed! Dave
has tested the sauna too. Not sure when the chalet is empty next so we can
‘test’ them again!

The chalet has a subtle ‘hint’ of Xmas about it with twinkly
outdoor lights on the balcony and around the lounge. A last minute purchase of
a Christmas tree is waiting to be unwrapped and decorated today - with what I
don’t know! We may have to resort to some Blue Peter style home made efforts.

The shopping has been a bit of a chore – buying sufficient
food, loo rolls, alcohol etc for 30 people (20 in our chalet & 10 in the
other chalet) plus staff for about 10 days until we go down to Cluses (the
nearest major town) for another shop. I had a ‘test’ meal to prepare on
Wednesday for 14 ‘expats’ living in the area. It seemed to go OK – all those
years working at Penmaen, in the Penhelig Arms and the Sandwich shop has obviously stood me
in good stead.

The Les Carroz tourist office have arranged a
packed programme with open air Christmas concerts and mass, live music, street
parades, an outdoor market, lantern releases and night-time ski-ing down the
lit-up pistes. Santa also has a packed schedule - going up in a hot air balloon,
ski-ing and parading through the streets handing out sweets. I will try and
update the blog when I have time – even if it is just photographs of village
life.